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Juxi Leitner

Microsoft Shows Off 'Milo' Virtual Human | News & Opinion | PCMag.com - 0 views

www.pcmag.com/...0,2817,2366470,00.asp

virtual human microsoft fun science AI technology INF

shared by Juxi Leitner on 20 Jul 10 - Cached
  • TED, Microsoft showed off its "virtual human" technology, named Milo, designed for the company's hands-free Xbox 360 motion controller called Kinect at TED Global in Oxford. Milo is built to react to people's emotions, body movements, and voice, allowing players to interact with the virtual character.
Francesco Biscani

Gamers beat algorithms at finding protein structures - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...finding-protein-structures.ars

inf

shared by Francesco Biscani on 04 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Foldit takes a hybrid approach. The Rosetta algorithm is used to create some potential starting structures, but users are then given a set of controls that let them poke and prod the protein's structure in three dimensions; displays provide live feedback on the energy of a configuration. 
  • By tracing the actions of the best players, the authors were able to figure out how the humans' excellent pattern recognition abilities gave them an edge over the computer.
  • Humans turn out to be really bad at starting from a simple linear chain of proteins; they need a rough idea of what the protein might look like before they can recognize patterns to optimize. Given a set of 10 potential structures produced by Rosetta, however, the best players were very adept at picking the one closest to the optimal configuration.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The authors also note that different players tended to have different strengths. Some were better at making the big adjustments needed to get near an energy minimum, while others enjoyed the fine-scale tweaking needed to fully optimize the structure. That's where Foldit's ability to enable team competitions, where different team members could handle the parts of the task most suited to their interests and abilities, really paid off.
  • Francesco Biscani on 04 Aug 10
     
    Some interesting ideas for our crowdsourcing game in here.
Giusi Schiavone

Uh-Oh: Robot Controlled By Rat Brain Cells - 2 views

www.geekologie.com/..._robot_controlled_by_rat_b.php

shared by Giusi Schiavone on 23 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Giusi Schiavone on 23 Sep 10
     
    did you already know about this?
  • LeopoldS on 24 Sep 10
     
    no .... nice
Dario Izzo

File Compression: New Tool for Life Detection? - 4 views

www.astrobio.net/...on-new-tool-for-life-detection

life AI image compression

shared by Dario Izzo on 21 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Dario Izzo on 21 Sep 10
     
    As mentioned today during coffee .... we could think to link this to source localization
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 22 Sep 10
     
    Not sure by what you mean by source localisation, but this using gzip to discern "biological" from "non-biological" images seems to me *very* tricky... I mean, there's a lot of other factors that may affect compressibility of an image than just mere "regularity" of the pattern, and if they haven't controlled for these, this is just bullsh1t... (For instance did they use the same imaging device to take those images? What about lighting conditions and exposure? etc). The apostle of sometimes surprising uses of compression is prof. Shmidhuber from IDSIA...
  • Dario Izzo on 22 Sep 10
     
    I completely agree with you..... still if you have one instrument on board the spacecraft and your picture compressibility is a noisy indicator of some interesting source .... we could try to perform some probabilistic reasoning
  • Juxi Leitner on 24 Sep 10
     
    I think they (IDSIA-Schmidhuber) are planning on putting something about that also inside the Acta Futura paper...
  • Ma Ru on 24 Sep 10
     
    Really, you think they'd target such a low impact factor publication? ;-P
  • Dario Izzo on 26 Sep 10
     
    you will all soon be begging to publish in Acta Futura! We will be bigger than Nature.
Joris _

Cyber Experts Have Proof That China Has Hijacked U.S.-Based Internet Traffic: UPDATED - Blog - 0 views

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/...Post.aspx

INF

shared by Joris _ on 25 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • For 18 minutes in April, China’s state-controlled telecommunications company hijacked 15 percent of the world’s Internet traffic
  • The telephone giants of the world work on a system based on trust,
  • They also trust that this system won’t be abused.
  • Joris _ on 25 Nov 10
     
    Some issues with internet. Let's invent the future internet ...
Joris _

Japan probe overshoots Venus, heads toward sun - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2010120701077.html

MAD venus robust

shared by Joris _ on 08 Dec 10 - No Cached
sreejanag liked it
  • A Japanese probe to Venus failed to reach orbit Wednesday and was captured by the sun's gravitational pull
  • Akatsuki's engines did not fire long enough to attain the proper orbiting position
  • may be able to try again when it passes by Venus six years from now.
  • Joris _ on 08 Dec 10
     
    The usefulness of having a robust trajectory :) ... They have to wait 6 more years for another date with Venus ...
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Joris _ on 09 Dec 10
  • LeopoldS on 11 Dec 10
     
    I agree in general but just out of the stomach: is there really an optimised trajectory that would be able to avoid this kind of scenarios when main thrusters don't perform properly? Wouldn't you in any case end up in a sun-orbiting trajectory and have to come back after years??
  • Joris _ on 11 Dec 10
     
    "optimised trajectory" of course not, robust definitely! It was the subject of my paper presented at the AAS (the one in San Diego) "Designing robust interplanetary trajectories subject to one temporary engine failure". The problem here is that they do not have enough fuel for a correction maneuver that would allow to come back to Venus earlier, and break for a VOI. A robust scenario could have alloted the best amount of fuel and time to be able to recover from almost all possible unplanned events. In the paper, I introduce some confidence regions such that I get the robust control for p% chance of mission success in case m% chance of problem with the propulsion system.
  • Dario Izzo on 12 Dec 10
     
    You should run your method on this scenario and see if you could get a trajectory with a shorter come back time using the same spacecraft.... would be a big selling point for a new trajectory design approach
Dario Izzo

Probabilistic Logic Allows Computer Chip to Run Faster - 3 views

www.azonano.com/news.asp

INF MAD probabilistic computing AI

shared by Dario Izzo on 07 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Dario Izzo on 07 Dec 09
     
    Francesco pointed out this research one year ago, we dropped it as noone was really considering it ... but in space a low CPU power consumption is crucial!! Maybe we should look back into this?
  • ...6 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 07 Dec 09
     
    Q1: For the time being, for what purposes computers are mainly used on-board?
  • Dario Izzo on 07 Dec 09
     
    for navigation, control, data handling and so on .... why?
  • Ma Ru on 07 Dec 09
     
    Well, because the point is to identify an application in which such computers would do the job... That could be either an existing application which can be done sufficiently well by such computers or a completely new application which is not already there for instance because of some power consumption constraints... Q2 would be then: for which of these purposes strict determinism of the results is not crucial? As the answer to this may not be obvious, a potential study could address this very issue. For instance one can consider on-board navigation systems with limited accuracy... I may be talking bullshit now, but perhaps in some applications it doesn't matter whether a satellite flies on the exact route but +/-10km to the left/right? ...and so on for the other systems. Another thing is understanding what exactly this probabilistic computing is, and what can be achieved using it (like the result is probabilistic but falls within a defined range of precision), etc. Did they build a complete chip or at least a sub-circiut, or still only logic gates...
  • Dario Izzo on 07 Dec 09
     
    Satellites use old CPUs also because with the trend of going for higher power modern CPUs are not very convenient from a system design point of view (TBC)... as a consequence the constraints put on on-board algorithms can be demanding. I agree with you that double precision might just not be necessary for a number of applications (navigation also), but I guess we are not talking about 10km as an absolute value, rather to a relative error that can be tolerated at level of (say) 10^-6. All in all you are right a first study should assess what application this would be useful at all.. and at what precision / power levels
  • Joris _ on 07 Dec 09
     
    The interest of this can be a high fault tolerance for some math operations, ... which would have for effect to simplify the job of coders! I don't think this is a good idea regarding power consumption for CPU (strictly speaking). The reason we use old chip is just a matter of qualification for space, not power. For instance a LEON Sparc (e.g. use on some platform for ESA) consumes something like 5mW/MHz so it is definitely not were an engineer will look for some power saving considering a usual 10-15kW spacecraft
  • Dario Izzo on 07 Dec 09
     
    What about speed then? Seven time faster could allow some real time navigation at higher speed (e.g. velocity of a terminal guidance for an asteroid impactor is limited to 10 km/s ... would a higher velocity be possible with faster processors?) Another issue is the radiation tolerance of the technology ... if the PCMOS are more tolerant to radiation they could get more easily space qualified.....
  • Joris _ on 08 Dec 09
     
    I don't remember what is the speed factor, but I guess this might do it! Although, I remember when using an IMU that you cannot have the data above a given rate (e.g. 20Hz even though the ADC samples the sensor at a little faster rate), so somehow it is not just the CPU that must be re-thought. When I say qualification I also imply the "hardened" phase.
  • Francesco Biscani on 08 Dec 09
     
    I don't know if the (promised) one-order-of-magnitude improvements in power efficiency and performance are enough to justify looking into this. For once, it is not clear to me what embracing this technology would mean from an engineering point of view: does this technology need an entirely new software/hardware stack? If that were the case, in my opinion any potential benefit would be nullified. Also, is it realistic to build an entire self-sufficient chip on this technology? While the precision of floating point computations may be degraded and still be useful, how does all this play with integer arithmetic? Keep in mind that, e.g., in the Linux kernel code floating-point calculations are not even allowed/available... It is probably possible to integrate an "accelerated" low-accuracy floating-point unit together with a traditional CPU, but then again you have more implementation overhead creeping in. Finally, recent processors by Intel (e.g., the Atom) and especially ARM boast really low power-consumption levels, at the same time offering performance-boosting features such as multi-core and vectorization capabilities. Don't such efforts have more potential, if anything because of economical/industrial inertia?
Francesco Biscani

Robot Uses 'Chaos Control' - Technology News - redOrbit - 4 views

www.redorbit.com/...index.html

ai

shared by Francesco Biscani on 18 Jan 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Francesco Biscani on 18 Jan 10
     
    Of any interest to our AI gurus?
  • Juxi Leitner on 21 Jan 10
     
    okay this is posted now 3 times ;) congrats you were the first :)
pacome delva

Algae Show a Knack for Quantum Mechanics -- Berardelli 2010 (203): 3 -- ScienceNOW - 1 views

sciencenow.sciencemag.org/...3

phy bio quantum_physics photosynthesis

shared by pacome delva on 04 Feb 10 - Cached
  • the discovery will open up a new field of research, and it could lead to a new generation of superefficient light-sensitive devices.
  • the experiments showed that the electron vibrations resulting from the photons striking the antennas persisted at full strength four times longer than expected. The reason, the researchers report this week in Nature, is that quantum mechanics controls the energy. "It was an utter surprise," says physical chemist and co-author Gregory Scholes of the University of Toronto in Canada. For the results to have occurred, he explains, a property called quantum coherence must have been operating.
  • the research "will open an entirely new area of biophysics." And that effort should have "huge implications," he says, "not only for how we think about biophysics, but also light harvesting and light-sensitive devices."
  • pacome delva on 04 Feb 10
     
    Very interesting work, showing that apparently algae mastered quantum coherence a few years before us... Inspiring for a new type of light-sensitive devices, and perhaps other applications...
pacome delva

New Material: Network of 'Streets' for Light - 1 views

focus.aps.org/st14

phy metamaterials waveguides

shared by pacome delva on 19 Apr 10 - Cached
  • In recent years, researchers have created early versions of "invisibility cloaks" and advanced optical fibers by manipulating light using structures composed of tiny, repeating units. In the 9 April Physical Review Letters, a team proposes a different way to make an artificial optical material--from a network of light-guiding filaments. If such structures are practical, they could open new ways to control light in technologies ranging from high-speed telecommunication to high-resolution imaging.
Juxi Leitner

Networked Networks Are Prone to Epic Failure | Wired Science | Wired.com - 1 views

www.wired.com/...networked-networks

tech networks failure

shared by Juxi Leitner on 27 Apr 10 - Cached
  • The interconnections fueled a cascading effect, with the failures coursing back and forth. A damaged node in the first network would pull down nodes in the second, which crashed nodes in the first, which brought down more in the second, and so on. And when they looked at data from a 2003 Italian power blackout, in which the electrical grid was linked to the computer network that controlled it, the patterns matched their models’ math.
  • Juxi Leitner on 27 Apr 10
     
    that would be an interesting "Systems of Systems" study for once ...
Nicholas Lan

Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network - 3 views

www.joindiaspora.com/project.html

technology social-networks open-source

shared by Nicholas Lan on 14 May 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • LeopoldS on 15 May 10
     
    but so far only an announcement ... they want to be ready in autumn only ... :-(
  • pacome delva on 17 May 10
     
    yes, but already 172000 dollars of donation (!!) and plenty of guys offered their service for the coding ! this is something a lot of people is waiting for !
  • Francesco Biscani on 17 May 10
     
    Anything that can has a chance to save us from the Facebook abomination is welcome...
LeopoldS

YouTube - iPad Controlled Video Blimp - 3 views

www.youtube.com/watch

gadget

shared by LeopoldS on 18 May 10 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 18 May 10
     
    i think we need one ...
  • Ma Ru on 19 May 10
     
    Leo, did you notice the CONSOLE OUTPUT at 0:17??
Juxi Leitner

Open Source Satellite Initiative | machine project - 3 views

machineproject.com/...satellite

education tech outreach satellites DIY

shared by Juxi Leitner on 20 May 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Juxi Leitner on 20 May 10
     
    All the satellite-related systems (except for the rocket to launch it) are DIY programs -- designed so that regular people may also have the chance of developing and eventually launching their own.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Joris _ on 20 May 10
     
    The book is actually funny to read ... but this is not serious! Is it ?
  • Juxi Leitner on 20 May 10
  • Joris _ on 20 May 10
     
    I was saying that mainly because of some flaws - the piggy-pack installation, no dedicated stage, the limited control, ... It is so far very funny, but once he can fill all the gaps, it should be an excellent initiative - although careful about the debris if anyone has its own ;p
  • LeopoldS on 26 May 10
     
    his quote: "when art becomes practical, we call it technology; when technology becomes useless, we call it art" ... this is probably the later one ....
Isabelle DB

Laser light and the nematode C. elegans - 2 views

colbert.physics.harvard.edu/videos.php

bio phy

shared by Isabelle DB on 10 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Isabelle DB on 10 Mar 11
     
    Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real-Time
LeopoldS

Official Google Blog: A new kind of computer: Chromebook - 3 views

googleblog.blogspot.com/...nd-of-computer-chromebook.html

technology INF

shared by LeopoldS on 12 May 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 12 May 11
     
    Francesco you will like this one ...
  • Francesco Biscani on 13 May 11
     
    Nahh... it's cloud com-poo-ting, it's all about taking control from the user into the corporation. To quote Stallman: "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign [...] Somebody is saying this is inevitable - and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."
  • LeopoldS on 15 May 11
     
    but it comes from google! :-)
LeopoldS

Europe tackles huge fraud : Nature News - 5 views

www.nature.com/...474265a.html

science inf EU

shared by LeopoldS on 16 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 16 Jun 11
     
    they used names of scientists and research centres without these actually knowing about their involvement it seems.... I am wondering what they actually reported back in terms of results? randomly generated papers? Christos?
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 16 Jun 11
     
    surprised? of course not! schadenfreude? yes, a lot!
  • Christos Ampatzis on 18 Jun 11
     
    Probably some bored project officer "accepted" the deliverables as reasonable? What worries me is the last paragraph by the Committee on Industry and Research (Space is in there..., all RTD is there...) Are we going to simplify procedures or tighten more??? Because there is a lot of talk about simplification in FP8: which is not well received by Parliament/Council and co...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 18 Jun 11
     
    Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm very pessimistic. I guess they will impose even more control, ask for even more detailed description of the results that will be delivered and concentrate even more on project funding instead of funding open research.
  • pacome delva on 20 Jun 11
     
    maybe this is what happen when there is so much paper involved... a simple phone call to one of the research scientist and the fraud is unveiled :) or maybe the "bored project officer" has a brand new mercedes...
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